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Visual and Material Rhetorics of the City, Laurie Gries

As Dorina Pojani and Dominic Stead (2015) argue in the Journal of Urban Design, visual rhetoric is pervasive in urban planning and design, as stakeholders with various interests and perspectives deploy a complex interplay of rhetorics to generate a “flow of competing discourse and imagery.” In the UNR Campus Master Plan (CMP), we see such visual rhetorics at play in colored drawings, photographs, maps, diagrams, and data visualizations that work in conjunction with textual description to forward a new “physical vision” for the UNR campus. The Visual Rhetorics and the City working group will contribute to current visions for the CMP Gateway Precinct by offering a sharp rhetorical analysis of current design plans and a prototype of interactive street installments designed to help generate outdoor spaces of connection and collaboration for “Innovation Alley.” Working from the inspiration from the Market Street Prototyping Festival held in San Francisco in 2015, our working group will design lingering spaces for Innovation Alley to create a unique atmosphere aligned with UNR’s and Reno’s already existing characters.